Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett shows an independence from majority view in recent opinions

WASHINGTON — During her Senate confirmation hearingsSupreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered a memorable line to describe her approach to cases: “It’s not Amy’s law.”

Barrett strengthened the Court’s position conservative supermajority four years ago and has since voted to repeal the federal right to abortion, eliminate affirmative action in college admissions, and expand gun rights. Yet, during the most recent term Her positions, which included sweeping changes to federal regulations and key victories for former President Donald Trump, at times showed a willingness to distance herself from the conservative majority.

Barrett wrote sharp dissents in a case related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and another case about regulating air pollution downwind. Appointed by Trump, she dissented on some of the former president’s points historic immunity decision and criticized parts of the majority decision to keep him on the electoral list.

“While she is firmly rooted in the conservative bloc, she is not necessarily moving in lockstep with the rest of the court’s conservatives. There are surprising glimpses of independence,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University.

In Trump’s immunity case, Barrett joined the majority but dissented from a finding that limited the evidence prosecutors can use in criminal cases against presidents. “The Constitution does not require juries to be blind to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which presidents may be held liable,” she wrote.

And while the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts directed the lower courts to analyze whether Trump could be prosecuted on charges that he participated in a scheme to solicit false electors in swing states, Barrett wrote that she saw “no plausible argument” to bar prosecution of that portion of the charge.

“Her opinion is essentially a guide to how the case could have proceeded,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University.

“I think we’re seeing Judge Barrett emerge as a principled voice in the center of the court,” he said, but added that its impact is muted by Roberts’ vote being further to the right.

The two faced off in the Jan. 6 case, with Barrett writing in a dissent that Roberts and the majority had made “textual somersaults” to reach a ruling that makes it harder for prosecutors to charge rioters with obstruction of justice.

The court was unanimous in its decision to retain the case. Trump on the ballotbut Barrett wrote in a concurrence that she believed the majority went further than necessary — while also criticizing the court’s liberal wing for the “shittiness” of its separate concurrence.

“She doesn’t always look at it from the same perspective as her colleagues on the left or the right, and I think we’re going to see more of that uniqueness,” said Adam Feldman, a scholar and founder of the blog Empirical SCOTUS.

She also differed from a decision to stop an Environmental Protection Agency plan to combat air pollution. She joined the Supreme Court’s liberal justices in a dissent that described the majority’s arguments as “weak,” saying they had relied on “cherry-picked” data and downplayed the EPA’s role.

Roberts and Barrett joined the parties in seeking a limited order allowing emergency abortions to resume for women in idaho. Barrett, who was part of the Supreme Court majority that knocked down Roe v. Wade wrote a concurrence in 2022 stating that the court dismissed the case because the facts had changed since the court first decided to take the case.

The ruling did not resolve key questions in the case, and the issue could soon return to the Supreme Court, but not until after the presidential election in November.

While Barrett has sometimes been willing to deviate from the conservative majority, she has more often joined it. Over the course of more than five dozen cases the court has heard this year, Barrett has joined the majority 92 percent of the time, Empirical SCOTUS found. She has been in the majority more often than Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She has voted for decisions that weakened federal regulatorshas authorized more aggressive raids on homeless camps in the West and a federal ban on bump stocks, the rapid-fire weapon accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in the nation’s history.

“I don’t know that it makes a whole lot of difference in the direction of the court. It’s a conservative supermajority, and she’s part of that supermajority,” Murray said. “She’s usually in that supermajority, and even when she’s not, it’s on the fringes.”